Family Matters

Yay! My family arrives tomorrow!!! It'll be great to share Kauai with them and show them around the hotel too. It'll be fun to get their impression on things and finally picture all of the things I talk about. We've got an action packed weekend and then relaxing for rest of the week. I get to spend the whole weekend with them and even Monday too! Should be a lot of fun and I cannot wait :)

Wacky Wednesday

Today wasn't really that wacky, but it sounded like a cool heading :)

James and I presented our two versions for the 2007 budget to Kelly Hoen and discussed some of the changes we would need to make. After working with James on it for a while, I sat at my desk and sent some emails out about the golf package. We decided to offer the package out to the wholesalers and only allowed them commission off of the rooms portion. Typically wholesalers get commission off the entire package, but since only a portion of the package are things that the hotel gaining a profit off of (not including things like the golf, bus transportation, PGA Grand Slam Tickets, etc.) we're only allowing them to receive partial commissions. Today was our RevMax meeting and James and I presented some of the competitive pricing we were putting together. Basically our strategy is to try and yield the highest rates whenever possible. I was talking in the meeting about our pricing changes, and Kelly Hoen just looked at me, then said "So does this mean that you are going to be checking up on our strategies when you're back at school?" Then everyone started laughing and joking how I would be calling James regularly on the phone to see how are pricing was going. After finishing the meeting, James and I went back to working on the budget.

Tomorrow we'll be working some more on the budgets and trying to get them finalized to send off for approval by the regional DORM. After that we'll be working on the sales strategy for next year.

Kauai . . . the new Pullman?

So yesterday I wrote saying that I thought Kapaa seemed similar to Pullman, and tonight I'm just sitting here in my lil hotel room and feel even stronger about their similiarities. I've really enjoyed going to school in Pullman, not just because of the great school but also because of the town and area. Pullman is completely different than Walnut Creek, CA and was a great change for me to move to. Now that I've been in Pullman for the last 5 years (yipe! that sounds so sad . . . sigh), I've had fun am ready for a change. Kauai would be another completely different step for me to take. Although the location is very different than Walnut Creek or Pullman, Kauai share some similarities with Pullman. Kauai has visitors come and go year around, as Pullman has its student population occupy the town for only short periods of time. Pullman is a small rural town but simultaneously very worldly with the events and people that the university draws. Kauai is also very small with close knit communities and rural feel, but can be exotic and worldly with all the things that the traveling tourists bring with them. No wonder I feel so at home in Kauai! That was my tangent for the evening . . .

Today, James and I spent most of the day creating forecasts for 2008. Our internet was down and were limited to only a couple things, but tomorrow we'll hopefully be up and running online and able to finish 2007's budget.

Kapaa Weekend

Saturday I took advantage of my free time and took the bus and headed to Kapaa. Its a cute small town and reminds me a little of Pullman, except in the middle of Kauai. Although the towns don't look the same, they have similar feels from the local people. I got to do some shopping and got a great souvenir. I really like Hawaiian quilts, but they usually run at least $120 and I didn't really want to pay that for a quilt. Instead I found this awesome wall hanging with the same designs as a Hawaiian quilt. I have this big blank wall in my apartment in Pullman and this will be the perfect thing to put on it. Plus, on those cold winter nights in Pullman it will remind me of the warm and sunny beaches of Kauai.

Sunday, I just hung around the hotel and relaxed. Today, things weren't too exciting. I spent most of the day working with Joanne, figuring out how to pull data to update our reports for the week. I can't believe that I only have 3 weeks left here and continuing to fly by. Tonight, I was eating dinner in the employee cafeteria and I was sitting and eating with Carlos and Kawika. They're the two night security men and we usually end up eating dinner at the same time, so we all usually sit around and exchange stories. I learn about their families and their kids, and we all just laugh and enjoy each other's company over our dinners. Carlos and Kawika used to each be in the Marines and Army respectively, Kawika was even stationed in Frankfurt Germany before my family and I had moved there. Tonight, they were asking how much longer I had and if I was going to come back. I told them my generic answer of "Well, I just need a job offer . . ." Both of them chimed in that they were sure I wouldn't have a problem since they've both " . . . only heard positive things said " about me. I couldn't help but take a little pride in that I had been accepted by most of the staff at the hotel. It took a while for Kawika to be friendly towards me and it meant a lot to me that he was now supportive of me. I knew people would be talking about me while I was staying here, but it was good to hear that it was at least positive things ;) Of course, I suppose if it was really bad I'm sure they wouldn't have told me about it either. Oh well, still made me feel happy. Its been nice befriending them, makes the employee cafeteria less intimidating at night and a little more enjoyable.

aloha friday! . . . again ;)

Another end to the week with more numbers and analysis. James and I spent most of today finishing up estimates for 2007 rooms revenue forecast. Alot of it seems to be gaged with a combination of "gut feeling" and previous experience in the market. I've really enjoyed my internship and it has also really helped me see the value in my education. I understand now why you need to understand economics, statistics, IT, MIS, and many other topics that I've covered in school. Although I "knew" they would be useful later in life, I can see now how and where it is actually useful in the work place. Its also strange to be working with someone who has extensive industry experience but not the same academic background that I have, yet I'm still able to keep up fairly well. You may never get industry experience in the classroom, but you can sure get a lot of other things that will definitely help you later. Duh Leah! I know its obvious, but its cool to actually see it, rather than have someone tell you.

I've been emailing with my professor Dr.Umbreit, the Director of the WSU School of Hospitality Business Management, and I will be working for him this coming year. Dr.Umbreit, recruited me when I was 16 and been generous enough to help support most of my schooling. He also encouraged me to go into Revenue Management. I'm very eager to return to WSU and share what I've learned so far. He also mentioned that I might be helping him instruct his class Hospitality Operational Analysis. Dr.Umbreit is also continuing to work on creating a scholarship withone of Starwood's past CEOs aimed to support women seeking hospitality degrees. I began helping him with it two years ago, but hopefully I can continue to help him develop it.

I'm stoked! My family comes to visit me in exactly one week! I can't wait to show them around the island. We might even get to go to the Koloa Plantations Days celebration events, such as parade, market, or rodeo.

Parker Ranch Rodeo in Waimea, Hawaii (Big Island)

Me on the trail

James and I mostly worked on the budget for next year. It was fun and for a couple of the months he let me fix the numbers to how much I thought we would be able to achieve. He also had a few side assignments for me, such as blocking off rooms for Starwood Vacation Ownership, fixing spreadsheets, and doing odds and ends. We've done a lot of networking today too. James spent a lot of the day calling his counterparts to see if they were experiencing the same things we were. Although he couldn't ask for specific numbers, he could ask for rough estimates on how things are going. I can definitely see how keeping in good contact with your counterparts can really be a great advantage to you. As my mom would always say "Network . . . or not work!"

the budget breakdown . . .

Yes its called the budget breakdown and a its fun little dance! I basically observed and took notes during a meeting Kelly Hoen, Jay, James, and Wayne all discussing the different renovation options for next year. Other then that the usual office bizz. We also had the revmax meeting today, and for it James and I started researching deeper into different reports to help explain the reasons for our current numbers. It was cool to put some input and hopefully help discover why certain things are happening to the hotel. I only have about 3 weeks left here and I can't believe how much has happened. I have also noticed that people are starting to infer more and more that I will be missed once I leave. I'm not sure when the whole job offer topic will be brought up, but I'm sure looking forward to it ;) Tomorrow will probably be more of the same, but this weekend I'm hoping to head into Kapaa for a little shopping and hanging out.

monday/tuesday more of the same :)

Today, Tuesday, was very much like Monday in that more number punching and getting prepared for the upcoming budget 2007 season. Since next year still has a lot of possibilities, its hard to make a budget based on this year's performance, but hey that's part of the job!

Monday I just collected and pulled data to some of our main reports while James spent most of the day training Joanne. Today, I worked on a few of my side projects including researching the cruise line industry. Currently, Hawaiian cruise ships do stop in Kauai but its very hard to get them to come up to the north shore. So I'm trying to work with Stephanie and see if we can develop a package or something to try and draw guests to the hotel. Grant it, we wouldn't be able to get room revenue from then but perhaps other ways such as in the restaurants, bars, or pool concierge. Gotta always be thinking outside of the box on how to distinguish yourself from your competitors and I think this could be a great advantage to Princeville Hotel. I also spent part of the day filling Carol, the new leisure sales manager, in about the Golf Package. Carol will be responsible for the package once I leave and don't want to leave her in the dark about it! Stephanie, our PR rep, met yesterday with some Golf journalists for different newspapers/magazines and they all loved the package! Isn't life great when people like your work?!

It was pretty cloudy/drizzly this weekend, but people like it because it brings the waterfalls to the mountains. In fact I can sometimes see up to three waterfalls from my room window! Life is really tough out here, I tell you :)

Sunday fun

Anahola Swap Meet Tent

Didn't too much today, just hung around the hotel and read my book, "Rebecca." Tomorrow I'll probably just be working on the projects James had assigned to me and possibly a new little project of my own ;)

Shave Ice Stand

Saturday fun

My day got off to a bit of a late start, Makana picked me up around 8 and we went to her Mom's house. We picked up tents and the crafts that they were planning on selling at the swap meet. We went to a little vacant lot on the side of the highway with a neighboring fruit stand and we then set up tents for the swap meet. Although Makana and Scott had spent a fair amount of time setting up the swap meet, nobody else came to sell their wares. Makana and Scott also had their shave ice trailer in the lot, so people driving by on the freeway would pull over to stop at the fruit stand and then buy some shave ice or bubble tea. As they bought food they would browse the crafts that were available. Since Makana had her brothers running the shave ice trailer, I spent most of the day playing with her daughters Hiilani, Analani, and Ke'hilani. Her Mom also showed me how to make flowers out of feathers or Kapa (this Hawaiian bark, Hawaiians use for cloth). We even got to munch on some fresh coconut! It was really cool to learn some crafts and Makana's Mom demonstrated how to use rhythm sticks in a song and broke out into a very old hula song/chant. It was awesome and odd at the same time to be immersed in such Hawaiian heritage. It made me feel very proud to be friends with them and to be learning about their heritage. After a full day of hanging out, Makana drove me back to the hotel.

For dinner I decided to eat at Cafe Hanalei and had another amazing meal there. Jeremy, the assistant manager there, who used to live in the hotel too, hooked me up with I think the best seat in the restaurant. I sat outside and got a full view of Hanalei Bay and out to Bali Hai. My dinner started with a salad and then a dish of grilled Ono with a coconut cream sauce over a bed of mashed taro, baby carrots, and bok choy. Delicious!

My dinner table in Cafe Hanalei

Tomorrow I'll probably just hang around one of the Princeville beaches or possibly make it over to Hanalei.

SVO

Aloha Friday! I'm so stoked! My family comes to visit me in 2 weeks! Yay!

Today, James was out of the office so I spent the day working with a branch of Starwood called Starwood Vacation Ownership (SVO). They sell timeshares for the new upcoming Westin Princeville Villas and luxury timeshares are one of the hottest segments in the hospitality world. It sounds like a pretty sweet property once finished in 2009 and could be a great investment for people considering timeshares.

I spent the first part of the day observing the "Welcome Desk" in the lobby and it was interesting how the two people at the desk approached guests and convinced them to go through a tour/sales pitch. Currently SVO search through upcoming reservations and call Starwood Preferred Guests (SPG) before they arrive and let them know about the opportunities with the Princeville Timeshare Villas. I've already heard someone mention that some SPG members don't enjoy the pre-arrival calls from SVO, but apparently some people like it because SPG members are coming and buying plenty of timeshares.

Afterwards, I went to the sales gallery where they take guests on "tours" and try to get guests to buy their properties. They give out some great gifts and incentives to go to the tours, like candy, $100 gift certificates, contests to wina BMW, and coupons. After I met with some of the sales staff, I visited their marketing office at the Prince Golf Course Clubhouse. It was really neat to meet their staff and they all seemed to be very friendly and welcoming.

I especially found interesting that quite a few of the SVO employees had originally worked for Marriott's Vacation Ownership Club and had moved to Starwood's. That's how Starwood even got to develop their SVO, is because the same guys who developed it at Marriott were hired by Starwood to come and be the CEO and COO at SVO. As much as I hear that Marriott is a great company to work for, my experiences with them has not been very good, so I was a little pleased to hear that Starwood was able to draw away some of their top employees. That's the business world for you I suppose, got always be watching for your competitors or they'll come out to get ya.

Tomorrow I'll be helping one of my coworkers, Makana, and her husband run a swap meet in Anahola. Its a fairly close community to Princeville and should be fun to see what community events are like around here. She originally asked me to man their shave ice stand, but we'll see where I end up working ;)

Regional Sales Team

June at Hanakapia Beach

Today the regional sales team from Honolulu came to meet with Jay and Kristin and our new leisure sales manager Carol. It was fun for me to sit in on the meeting with James and listen to their sales strategy for the rest of the upcoming year. I also got to present my finished package which the Director of Regional Sales, Michael Troy, was very impressed with. After the meeting, I sent out the details about the package out to our email marketing coordinator, so hopefully we'll get things up and rolling and out to the general public.

I had a lot of fun putting together the golf package and I might be possibly working on more while I'm here. James also assigned to me a couple projects, that I probably could get working on next week. They're both mostly number inputting for special spreadsheets or formulas, but I'm excited to start doing some stuff on my own.

Tomorrow, James will be out of the office and I will spend the day working with Starwood Vacation Ownership and learning more about Starwood's timeshare businesses. Sounds like another exciting day at the Princeville Hotel!

Manager's reception

My goodness! I know I work at a resort that belongs to the Starwood's Luxury Collection, but it still amazes me how much money some of these guests have. Every Wednesday, the GM invites return guests to the "Managers Reception," with of course complimentary cocktails, wine, and heavy pupus (appetizers). Since Kelly was going to be out of town, James and I were volunteered for the job. After James and I had finished our day of analyzing numbers, reports, and rate plans, we headed to the Living Room, the hotel's lounge. We sat down to talk with the attending guests and chatted about their stay with the hotel so far. One lady I spoke to had obviously done some face work and soon went off telling me about all of her great travels to the different St.Regis properties. By far Aspen was her favorite, but it was hard for her to leave her BMW at her Orange County home . . . blah blah blah. Some of these return guests, come to the hotel a couple times a year dropping at least $20,000 for their rooms each time! But hey if it wasn't for these guests, we would all be out of a job :)

Tomorrow I'll be participating in the semi-annual sales meeting with our regional sales bosses. They are flying over from Honolulu to first visit Sheraton Kauai and then later with us. It will be a great opportunity for me to network and meet more people in the region and also learn more about how the regional sales team operates.

Another one

View of Na Pali Coast from Saturday's hike

Well don't have anything new to really report for today. Things are going well and I finished up the Princeville Grand Slam Golf Package's PR description and final pricing today. James and I sat down together and really dissected what I had put together so far, to see if we could come up with any potential customer concerns or loop holes. James gave great advice about what to write as the terms and conditions and also had some great stories of what guests had tried to get away with in the past. For example, what if they guest wants to stay more or less than what the package includes? Are room upgrades available? What if two people book the package but only one person wants to play golf? Could they combine or exchange offers? If the wholesalers take a certain percentage of the final price, how much does that price need to be in order to make an acceptable profit? Accounting also has to figure out how to bill all of the different departments appropriately too (such as Banquets/Catering, Makai Golf Course, Bus services, etc.). Its also hard for us to know where to shoot for exactly with this package because this is the hotel's first attempt at one like it and none of the other hotels have a package that we can accurately compare to. Aww the fun of Revenue Management . . . well at least I have fun doing it :)

Tomorrow, James and I will hopefully load the final rate plan into the Galaxy information system and then we can pass on the information to the appropriate marketing channels and get people to start booking it. James and I had created a special rate plan to try and increase business in the following months and by checking some of our daily reports we're seeing people booking the new rate plan. I hope that I'll be around to see one or two of the Golf packages booked, but I might just have to wait for November to roll around to get the final results and numbers for the package.

Mid-Year Manager's Celebration

KeKe Beach

Today was the Mid-Year's Managers' Celebration, surprisingly enough its purpose is to celebrate the manager's accomplishments so far. The meeting was also focused around the book "NOW, Discover your strengths!", which is basically a system of categorizing people's strengths into certain categories. I took the online test on Sunday and found out that my number one strength is the theme Input. Input is supposed to be someone who enjoys collecting and researching information. Some of my other strengths are Consistency, Learner, Intellectual, and Harmony. It was interesting to find out the areas that I'm strong in and fun to think that I can use these themes to guide me in my future career. At the meeting we learned about the other strengths from all the other managers and many of them had matching strengths to match the needs of their jobs. Interestingly enough, I was the only one with Input that I could find.

Before the meeting started, the culinary team put together an omelette station and fruit buffet for breakfast and then for a morning break they had a crepe station with fresh fruit and sauces. Its fun when you have meetings with the culinary team because they always want to really wow you. Of course, they usually do :)

The rest of the meeting I listened to presentations from all of different managers. I was one of the last people to present and I could tell that I had made a good impression on my coworkers. I presented what I had done with the Grand Slam Golf Package and the numbers that I had put together for it. After the meeting finished, Jay came and complimented me on my work with the package and presentation.

Today I squared away the charter bus and tomorrow I will have the PR description of the package finished. After that, we can release it through corporate web sites and also through the Kauai Visitors Bureau. It will be so cool if it sells well and then I will be able to leave a legacy with the hotel :).

Hanakapiai Beach

June overlooking our hike so far

Saturday morning my cousin June flew over from Honolulu to Kauai. She was supposed to meet some family on Sunday, but Saturday she spent the day with me. I had heard some locals talk about a great trail to an isolated beach (what a surprise :) ) at the end of the North Shore road. The trails are basically the only way to access the Napali Coast by foot and then of course some parts of it are accessible by boat too. The surf tends to be pretty rough, so even taking a boat can be a dangerous.

June is pretty adventurous and was excited about the hike. After a slight delay of finding some proper shoes for her, we headed out on our way toward KeKe beach and the trail to Hanakapiai. June rented a convertible for the weekend, so we had a blast driving down to the end of the windy North Shore road. Soon we were out on the trail and it sure proved to be an adventure. The slope was typically pretty steep, with boulders and rocks blocking pathways, and alot of people were returning from the beach so it slowed traffic down quite a bit. I also noticed that all of the return hikers looked famished and this made June and I a little more weary about the hike. After about an hour of hiking, we decided to stop and have our lunch sandwiches that we had packed along. Once we got going again, we became concerned on how much further we needed to go to get to the beach. It was only 2 miles, but it sure seemed to take forever and every passing person that we asked seemed to have a different time estimate till the beach. Finally we arrived at the beach and it was breath taking. So quiet and serene with a beautiful mix of blues from the sky to the ocean and to the river delta. Words can't describe how wonderful it was there and June and I wished we could have stayed longer, but we wanted to make sure that we left with plenty of time to return. It was an awesome hike, but sheesh the longest two miles I have walked.

With the top down, we headed back to the hotel and then cleaned up for dinner. We had a fabulous dinner with a little wine at Cafe Hanalei and afterwards we were definitely ready for bed. A great Saturday and an awesome first glimpse of the "true" Kauaian North Shore.

another aloha friday

Finished off another week and things are looking pretty good for the weekend too. Most of the early morning James and I finished up setting our rates to be more competitive with Hyatt. It was pretty fun, because basically he left the pricing decisions up to me. As I mentioned earlier, we have to also make sure that the hotel’s information system matches the prices of expedia’s system, and that took up most of the morning.

Still working on my golf package, but I’m close to being completely done with it. I know I keep saying that, but that’s because some of these final details take so long to finish up. Stephanie, our PR person, and I got together to discuss the package and what we wanted for marketing. We’re planning on placing it on our branded site and then possibly on luxurycollection.com too. I really want to place a blurp about it on thelobby.com too, but having some trouble with regional wanting it on there. Once we’re finished we can open up sales for the call centers and Jay wants to pass it on to the wholesalers too. Unfortunately, wholesalers take commission off the rooms portion, but as long as we fill our estimated 40 spots then we’ll be stoked! We would really like to make this an annual package if things go well and any help for November revenue will be very beneficial :)

After work, Kelly Kaona invited me to go for a walk along the bay and dinner and a movie later. It was wonderful to get some exercise by the beach in Hanalei and then we went to the Hanalei Gourmet for a little dinner. I had an awesome little salad and some stir fry vegetables. After that we headed back to her house to watch a movie and then she took me back to the hotel. I was pretty tired, so I just went straight to bed once I got back.

Saturday my cousin June is coming to visit me for a day! I’m stoked about it and I have a few things in mind about what we can do.

Strategizing and more

Today was a pretty good day, James and I spent most of the day looking at our upcoming pricing with our most direct competitor, Grand Hyatt in Koloa. Since the Grand Hyatt and us are the only two 4 star properties on the island, it makes for sometimes tough competition. Hyatt has more rooms than we do and therefore can afford to offer sometimes lower rates than us, but they don't have the great location that we have. Fall is hard for hotels in Hawaii and that's why James and I are looking ahead to prepare for the tougher season.

Most of our rates we control through the hotel's information system, but for certain channels like expedia.com we have to use a specific website system set up by expedia.com. You also have to be careful when you fluctuate you rates because Starwood and all of your travel sites (expedia.com, travelocity.com, orbitz.com, etc) constantly shop your best available rates (BAR). Most of the big hotel corporations, like Starwood, have created a policy that if a guest finds a rate cheaper than their branded website, then the hotel will match the lower price and also give an additional discount. Same with competing travel sites, for example if you offer a lower rate at orbitz than expedia, expedia will call you up and accuse you of letting them lose market share to one of their competitors. All very interesting and again, playing with rates is where strategy fun comes in.

James had to go to a meeting without me and he left me to finish up fixing our prices to be more competitive with Hyatt. It was a little scary to know that I had complete access to the hotel's information system, reservation system, and expedia.com. Potentially I could have really screwed things up, but so things have continued smoothly :)

At our weekly staff meeting, Kelly Hoen announced that this Monday there will be a manager's short retreat/meeting/celebration. The theme of the meeting was to continue to pursue one's strengths in order to further help the hotel. Earlier in the year everyone had participated in a training based on a book called "NOW, Discover Your Strengths," where it focuses improvement based on your strengths rather than always looking at your weaknesses. The meeting on Monday sounded fun and was focused around some quiz in the book, but I wasn't sure if I was allowed to go since I didn't participate in the prior training (nor did I have a book). While I was working at my desk finishing up fixing our prices, I ended up staying later than usual and Kelly was walking to her office and saw me. She walked over and gave me a copy of the book! I was excited and thanked her. After talking to her about the book a little more I also asked if could go to the meeting on Monday and she said sure! She called up the HR director and told her to add me to the list. She instructed me what to read and do in order to catch up with everyone else. All of the other managers were also instructed in preparation of Monday to create a 3 minute presentation on their biggest achievement with the hotel in the last six months. Kelly told me since I was going to the meeting, I should also give a presentation. I told her I wasn't sure what to present on in my 6 weeks here, but she encourage me and said with a smile "Oh I'm sure you'll be able to come up with something. You seem to be a pretty good speaker."

I'm not sure what I'll present, but I have a few ideas and have a little time to think about it

Right before I finished, James got news of someone who booked the royal suite in August for 13 nights! Our Royal Suite is our biggest and most expensive suite, so we always get excited when we sell it. That one booking made the hotel over $36,000 (and that doesn't even include food, ametities, internet, parking, etc.)! Sheesh . . . well that's life in the hotel biz and definitely one of the reasons I like it :)

back to work

James and I worked with reorganizing the hotel's reservations system to work better with our current marketing channels. Its been fun, because I've also been helping Jay and James create promotional offers to help raise sales in some of our slower time frames.

After RevMax meeting today, my little project was to fix a spreadsheet that the night auditor uses. Every night, the night auditor enters the day's final numbers ranging from the number of guests to amount of different market segments' revenue. After these numbers are entered in, the excel sheet then links the numbers to different reports for different managers to use all over the hotel. Unfortunately the last two nights, July's spreadsheet has not been working correctly and it was my job to find the problem and fix it. After a little excel detective work (jeez that sounds cheesy), I figured out the problem and fixed it. It was one of those moments where I was on my own and able to help out James. Not sure exactly what tomorrow has in store, but I bet it will involve managing some revenue :)!

Happy Fourth!

I went in to work today and I was surprised to see how many people were working the holiday. James and I spent a lot of time forecasting room sales in the different markets for August, September, and October. It requires a bit of analysis with different forms of measurements and we didn't seem to follow a real straight forward method. Hopefully when I make it to a DORM I will have figured out more of methodical way to do forecasting. Then again maybe that's just how revenue management goes :)

After work, my coworker, Jennifer, invited me to go with her and her husband to Hanalei Bay Beach to watch some local fireworks. She's the director of rooms and basically in charge of nearly all operations of the hotel. They picked me up at and we headed to the beach. The beach was decently full with fellow BBQers and volleyball game players. This is by far my favorite beach on the island and it sounds like locals from the North Shore usually go to this beach. Jen had brought some pasta salad and some brie and bread for us to enjoy with her husband's wide array of fireworks. Apparently, fireworks are legal on the 4th of July in Hawaii and everyone seemed to have a fair share of them. We had the perfect seat to watch fireworks and in the background a group of surfer-looking guys strummed on their guitars to give us perfect background music to enjoy. I loved the feeling of the beach. It was so small-town America, except on a beach! The smell of firework smoke and the laughing kids in the background couldn't make me more proud to celebrate our nation's holiday in such a wonderful place. As we watched the sunset and night approach, we sipped wine and enjoyed the crashing waves and local fireworks show.

Hawaii Friday

Before James DiMartino was going to go into work, he was going to take me around to some of the sights and his hotel the Fairmont Orchid (http://www.fairmont.com/FA/en/CDA/Home/Hotels/AboutHotel/CDHotelHomePage/0,1143,code_type=MEET&property_seq=100141,00.html).

On our way to his hotel we passed by lots of home developments, which as he told me are selling very quickly at minimum of $2 Million. We stopped at a little shopping mall and got some Starbucks, which was very strange since I haven't had any since I was back on the mainland. At this same shopping center, supposedly a Whole Foods will also going to be built in. You know, I'm all about good food and making it available to people, but Whole Foods in Hawaii? What about FoodLand or Big Save?! I guess that's why they say Kauai is one of the most laid back islands compared to the others. I'm not sureif they would allow a Whole Foods to come here.

We then went to his hotel and I enjoyed seeing one of our competiting properties. Although their hotel was bigger than ours, I still feel like we could easily compete with them. Once our renovation is finished then we'll really be swinging!

Since James had to go back to work (he originally was supposed to have the day off), he let me borrow his car to explore parts of the island. I had a blast driving around and planning my own day's activities. I first drove to Waimea, the cowboy country of Hawaii, to check out the Parker Ranch. Its the oldest working ranch in America, because apparently they started raising cattle before the West did. They still raise cattle today, and Safeway's Rancher's Reserve is one of their most well known brands. Who would have thought that we were eating Hawaiian born meat? :)

I then continued on driving to Sheraton Keahou, our sister property, to meet with their new DORM. I was interested to meet him because he just finished a management training program and just got placed there. He was an interesting guy, but I'm starting to see a trend with DORMs. It all happened when my friends Dave and James were teasing me by laughing and saying to their friends, "Yeah she's doing a revenue management internship at Princeville . . . yeah . . . she's one of 'those'." My boss, James, is a fun guy but definitely a little quirky at times. Same with Sheraton Poipu's DORM and I also noticed some of it in Sheraton Keahou's too! Oy! Well, I'm here to break the mold! No quirkiness at all . . . well maybe just a little :)

I swung back to Waikoloa for a little bit of relaxation and then went back to the Fairmont Orchid to have dinner. I had an awesome Ahi Poke Cesar Salad and finished with a delicious Banana and Fudge Lava Cake. Once the guys finished work at about 9:30 we headed to the local bars to unwind on a Waikoloa typical Friday night.

It was a great weekend and it was awesome to hang out with my friends and explore Hawaii even more further!

great weekend on the big island!

Thursday evening after finishing work a little early, James drove me to the Lihue airport to catch a plane to Kona, on the big island (Hawaii). We had to leave a little early to make extra time in case there was any traffic and I'm glad we did. Since its only a two lane road until Lihue, any little accident or back up can really take a long time.

Once I got to the airport I had some time to kill waiting for my flight, so of course I explored one of the two airport shops looking at all of the little Kauai trinkets and souvenirs. My flight's airline is called go! and it recently started competing with the only other inter-island flight companies of Hawaiian Airlines and Aloha Airlines. The market is hard to compete in and the two main airlines typically drive prices up to over $100 per flight. Doesn't sound too expensive, but considering that a flight isn't longer than 30 minutes, equivalent flights are sure cheaper on the mainland. go! was an interesting experience and they were pretty unorganized on the way there, for example bringing us out on the runway to load our plane before the flight before us had even been unloaded. I hope they make it though, they seem to be a pretty neat company and especially trying to focus on local Hawaiians rather than tourists.

I flew to Honolulu and then to Kona and arrived around 8:30 pm. My friend Dave Lennon was flying in the same time from LA and his roommate and my friend James DiMartino came to pick us up. It was great to see some familiar faces in the islands and even cooler to exchange stories with them. James and Dave had both graduated from WSU's hospitality program and I had worked with Dave at the Coug. So of course, when we were leaving we decided to go to the Kona Brewery. I was starving by the time we got there, but unfortunately they had closed down the kitchen. So instead we just sat down for a beer and talked. I had this awesome Lilikoi Wheat Ale and James and Dave both had the Hula Hefeweizen. We also got to sample the new Black Sand Porter.

Pretty soon we headed to toward Waikoloa and stopped at their favorite local bar(and only one in town) and grubbed some delicious cheeseburgers. After that we headed home and I crashed on their couch. Got a busy day on Saturday!

Kona Brewery Pub in the daytime